Rowling has no need of either the shelf space or the column inches, but other writers desperately do.
—
So this is my plea to JK Rowling. Remember what it was like when The Cuckoo’s Calling had only sold a few boxes and think about those of us who are stuck there, because we can’t wave a wand and turn our books into overnight bestsellers merely by saying the magic word. By all means keep writing for kids, or for your personal pleasure – I would never deny anyone that – but when it comes to the adult market you’ve had your turn.

This – and I’m speaking as a writer who couldn’t cut it in commercial fiction, just like the person who wrote this dripping bit of slime, so I’m not criticizing outside my own class – is just about as low as a human can get without the actual use of poison.

5 Responses to Have you seen this?

Liike a mixture of varying specific gravities, literature sorts itself out. The good stuff is on top, the mediocre somewhat lower, and the rest is, well, down there where it belongs. Stir all you like, the result is ultimately the same.

I’m at a loss of words with how completely illogical the whole article is. However I don’t plan on reading either of them, so her point is lost on me anyway. On the other hand I greatly enjoyed reading “The Scroll of Jeremiah” and am making good headway on “The Last Faithful Man”. They may not have been a commercial success, but for my money they are a darn good read. Speaking of which, how’s that Shadow novel coming along?

Earlier this eve I looked up John Prine on Wikipedia – curious if he was still among the living. Yes – he still is – fwiw. What was funny is that I read that Kristofferson (who supposedly brought Prine into the spotlight) once said of Prine’s songwriting – “We’ll have to break his thumbs!”

Well, I thought everyone knew that sooner or later you’ve made enough money. ‘El residente told us so after all so it must be true. And you know the pie is only so big and can only be divided so many times…. Right?

STILL AVAILABLE!

$4.99 Buys It.

Help Joel Buy ISP Time, Glaucoma Meds, and Cheap Booze!

Free! (and worth every penny)

Scary Manifesto that keeps getting pushed down on the sidebar by filthy capitalism!

They say that Louis XIV had the inscription Ultima Ratio Regum cast into all the cannon of the French Army. It means "The Ultimate Argument of Kings," and that always struck me as one of the most honest and up-front things any ruler or would-be ruler ever said. "We can dress it up prettier than this, but when it comes down to the unvarnished truth this is what it's about: You'll do as I say or I'll send my goons to kill you."

I thought about that for a long time. If there's an ultimate argument, it seems only logical that there must be an ultimate answer. For years I thought the ultimate answer must be the bullets in my rifle, but it never seemed quite right. I've got bullets - he's got frigging Cannon Balls. I mean, if there were three hundred million rifles throwing bullets at him, then maybe. But we all know that's not going to happen. So if there's an ultimate answer to his ultimate argument, it sure as hell ain't bullets.

It finally came to me - and that's when I left the city, abandoned a goodly percentage of my goods, and gave all that was behind me a good, stiff Randian Shrug.

Previous OPSEC Violations

Previous OPSEC Violations

More Filthy Capitalism!

Do you suffer from a lonely, unfulfilled, angst-driven existence? Do you often wish you could do something meaningful with your life, like end death or war or taxes, or maybe just read a really good book?

Then you need to buy the following novels immediately!

The Scroll of Jeremiah

The Last Faithful Man

Walt’s Gulch

Songs of Bad Men and Good

Seditious Tripe!

"Freedom Outlaw. It’s not what you do; it’s how you do it. It’s an attitude — from which actions always follow. It’s a do-it-yourself occupation. And a lifetime vocation."

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
- G. K. Chesterton

"If every Jewish and anti-Nazi family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition and the will to use it, Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Weimar Republic."
- Aaron Zelman

"Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force."
- Barbie

Puppycide

The...average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty – and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies.
– H.L. Mencken, Baltimore Evening Sun, Feb. 12, 1923

"You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." The sophistry of villains - Bah!
- Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star

“Truth is, I’m not specifically interested in an armed society. What I want is a free society.”

- George Potter

“Gold is the money of kings, silver is the money of gentlemen, barter is the money of peasants – but debt is the money of slaves.”
- Norm Franz

"You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once."
- Robert A. Heinlein

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing."
- Helen Keller

"It has long been my conviction that a masked man with a gun is a target. I see no reason to change that view."
-Jeff Cooper

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.

- D. H. Lawrence

All men should try to learn before they die /
What they are running from, and to, and why.
-James Thurber

Aristippus passed Diogenes as he was washing lentils.

He said, “If you could but learn to flatter the king, you would not have to live on lentils.”

Diogenes said, “And if you could learn to live on lentils, you would not have to flatter the king.”

Sandy Hook was a Gun Free Zone.

- Reality

"The kind of man who demands that government enforce his ideas is always the kind whose ideas are idiotic."
- H. L. Mencken

"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."

- Ayn Rand

"On any Tuesday morning, if asked, a hermit will tell you with some self-satisfaction that the affairs of his life are nicely in order, that things are looking clear and making sense, and all is well. But come back again on another Tuesday, and the roof may have just fallen in on all his works."
-Joel, with apologies to Lewis Thomas

Don't be afraid to try something big, just because you're an amateur. The Ark was built by amateurs. The Titanic was built by professionals.

- Anon

A basic split between shits and Johnsons has emerged.

- William Burroughs, 1988

"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."

- Gen. James Mattis

"Lust for power is the most flagrant of all the passions."
- Tacitus

"The man who knows what freedom means will find a way to be free."
- F.A. "Baldy" Harper

"The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude."
- William James

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. 'He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,' is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers...A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice.

He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.
- G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.

- Milton Friedman

“We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.”
- William Faulkner

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
- Ernest Hemingway

When asked the secret of how he accumulated 505 confirmed sniper kills on Soviet invaders, Simo Häyhä would smile and reply, "Practice."

"Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'"
- Ronald Reagan